Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Sorry to get all questiony

Roger Friedman: "On the picket line near Warner Bros. in Burbank, I heard plenty of conflicting opinions the other day. Older writers are in it for the long haul. They have enough savings, and they know how important it is to get the new media payments sorted out. Younger writers are not so sure. They’re just starting out, and they’re not so well-paid in the first place. Impatient to earn a living and sell some projects, the new generation doesn’t care much about the Internet. It’s ironic, because you’d think they would understand its grasp all the more."

Question: since some of those "younger writers" have—maybe, probably, just saying—once or twice downloaded a song illegally, would that influence their thinking too?

But back to Friedman: "One thing’s for certain, though. If the writers give on new media, just as Apple announces movie downloading and Amazon revs up its own site, the movie and TV businesses could end up like the music business: dead."

Another question: is the music business dead because songwriters didn't get a proper cut of download profits? Really?